When similar ecological patterns in time emerge from different initial conditions: equifinality in the breeding performance of animal populations

In many behavioural, ecological and evolutionary trade-offs, patterns and trends, the same/similar outcomes are often expected from the different initial conditions. One of the most frequently encountered problems in ecology is how to disentangle two or more different hypotheses possibly explaining the emergence of an ecological pattern based on limited data that would fit both. Using previously published interaction patterns between floaters and breeders of an eagle population (Penteriani et al., 2006), it was possible to detect and to find an explanation to the singular case of the emergence of a similar ecological pattern under two very different scenarios, that is when different factors are affecting the intrinsic dynamic of a population. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.